I can't post it here because there are graphics in the web page, and they are important. I don't think graphics can be posted inside posts, and there is no way to add attachments either.
That is why these PHP forums are usually free to operate.
Darren
PS. Here is the web page minus the graphics. PM me if you want the whole thing. If you go to the nice web site link at the bottom, it is his site, but he seems to have removed this page. Anyway, I could not find it.
Circumventing Newton's 3rd Law of Motion
montalk 9/10/01
all rights reserved
"For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction" -- Sir Isaac Newton
Nice quote, but what does it mean? Conventionally, it means that if you push against something, it pushes back. Wherever there is a force, there must be an equal force going the other way.
For example, when you lean against the wall, there is an equal force at point of contact pushing you back -- this way, you remain propped up since both forces cancel out. If there were nothing pushing back, you might as well be leaning into thin air and face the fall. Or in the case of a rocket, in order to push itself upward, it must push exhaust down.
But, that's not where the law ends. Supposedly, an isolated system cannot move one way without applying a force the other way. To illustrate, take the case of a box floating in outer space. It doesn't matter what's in the box, its center of mass won't budge unless it pushes off against something outside the box. We are taught in schools and universities that it is impossible for this isolated box to provide its own action without an equal and opposite external reaction.
Introduction
In this article, you'll see why it is possible for the box to move on its own, without use of an external force. What's the big deal? you may ask. The big deal is that thousands of scientists for the past several centuries have denied the possibility of action without reaction. And yet, the simple loophole of physics this article focuses upon proves not only that they are wrong on the matter, but shows WHY they are wrong. There are tremendous applications of this principle, the biggest being that if the box can provide its own internal thrust no matter what its velocity (since velocity is relative), it continually accelerates to greater and greater speeds. It needs no road to provide grip for its wheels, or exhaust plumes to propel it through space.
The 3rd Law
What is known today as Newton's 3rd Law isn't the original law, but rather a specific application based upon several assumptions which don't apply to all cases. In fact, many "laws" are faulty due to their being based upon certain assumptions that aren't universal.
[One example is the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, which in essence says that heat can't flow from cold to hot unless external energy is applied to separate a homogeneously lukewarm material into hot and cold components. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics lies upon the assumption that materials such as gases, solids, and liquids are infinitesimally uniform in structure. We know, however, that materials are actually discreet, made of atoms and molecules which bounce around like crazy (this is what constitutes thermal energy). Such random motion can be rectified via passive mechanisms to extract heat energy, making the receiver of such extracted energy hotter, and the cold object from which the energy was extracted even colder. This "violates" the law, only because it works through a principle ignored under its assumptions.]
Here are the assumptions made under today's interpretation of Newton's 3rd Law:
1) The system being studied is frictionless
2) The momentum involved is strictly linear
Therefore, you can see that the "law" (or its implications as stated by our physicists) doesn't fully apply to systems that involve some friction and/or non-linear (angular) momentum.
They key to circumventing Newton's 3rd Law lies in the clever use of momentum. There is another law called Conservation of Momentum, which is Newton's 3rd Law in disguise. It says that in a system of interacting components without external forces, the total momentum is constant.
Basics of Momentum
Momentum is how much "oomph" a mass with a certain velocity has. A running linebacker has more momentum than a skinny guy running at the same speed. He'll be able to knock down a brick wall while the skinny guy just gets knocked out. Momentum has magnitude and direction. This means momentum in one direction isn't the same as momentum going another direction, even if they have the same strength or magnitude. Momentum is also related to force -- force is defined as rate of change of momentum. So the greater the initial momentum, the greater the force generated when the object is slowed down. To put it another way, both the linebacker and skinny guy will come to a stop from their respective speeds after encountering the wall. But because the linebacker has more momentum to start with which must be reduced in him to zero when he stops, he generates a greater force than the skinny guy and is therefore capable of busting down the wall.
In addition to linear momentum (when a mass travels in a straight line), there is also angular momentum. Angular momentum is how much "oomph" a spinning flywheel has, for example. If the flywheel is made of stone, then it's much harder to slow down its rate of rotation than if it were made of wood or plastic. Unlike the linebacker, the flywheel itself doesn't go anywhere -- all the momentum is stored in its rotation. Angular momentum is defined as (moment of inertia) X (angular velocity). Moment of inertia is just a measure of how hard it is to speed up a flywheel (similar to mass, which measures how difficult it is to speed up an object linearly).
Both angular and linear momentum, however, are equivalent in the "oomph" factor. They are simply directed differently. Angular is directed in a circle, and linear in a straight line. When objects with momentum are slowed down, they generate a force. In the case of linear momentum, the force is straight ahead, and for angular momentum, the force is circular.
The Flaw
Notice that Newton's 3rd Law, so far as it applies to the box example, only cares about linear force and linear momentum. If there is only linear momentum involved, then yes, all forces generated will be linear and consequently for every linear action there will be an equal and opposite linear reaction. Nothing special there.
What if the action is linear, but the reaction angular? In this case, momentum will be still conserved since both angular and linear are pretty much equivalent in the "oomph" factor. The Law of Conservation of Momentum holds in this case.
But what about force? Let's see...the linear momentum generates a linear force (action), and the angular momentum generates an angular force (reaction). Newton's 3rd Law, however, sees only the linear force, the action. Where is the linear reaction? There is none, since it's angular. Hence, there is no linear reaction force. This means that overall, there is net linear force, or action without reaction.
An Example
This seems pretty abstract at the moment, so let's look at some illustrations.
Here we have a linear system: two balls being pushed apart by a stationary and unconnected spring. The balls and spring are on a cart. At the moment of push-off, the balls effectively push off each other in equal and opposite ways. When the balls roll over and hit the ends of the cart, the force or impulse generated by each ball is equal in magnitude and opposite the direction of the other. In other words, everything cancels out and the whole cart stays where it is. This is just as the Law of Conservation of Momentum and Newton's 3rd Law predicts.
Next, we have a hybrid system, part linear, part angular: The first ball remains as it was before, to travel in a linear direction with linear momentum. The second ball, however, is replaced by an angular system consisting of two smaller balls on a solid rod (isn't physics fun?). The rod is able to spin about its center axle, which is anchored to a support plate connected to the cart.
At the moment of push-off, everything is the same as it was before; each ball pushes off the other and so far everything cancels out since at that moment, things are still quite linear. The smaller balls on the rod mimic, in terms of inertia, the ball from the linear example. Forces cancel, and momentum is conserved. One ball heads to one end of the cart (linear momentum), and the other "ball" spins about the axle.
But, after a few moments, the first ball impacts the cart's wall, transferring its momentum to the cart. The cart begins to roll due to a net linear force.
On the other side of the cart, if an internal brake is applied to the rod's axle, the spinning device comes to a stop. From this angular device, no linear force results. Therefore, the linear "reaction force" is absent. To return the system to its original configuration, the wall can fire the ball back into the spring, which would result in no net motion since both the firing of the ball and absorption by the spring would cancel each other.
The cart has been reset, but is now rolling along thanks to the net impulse delivered during the first cycle. In essence, the whole cart has begun moving by itself without external forces involved, something said to be impossible according to Newton's 3rd Law.
Perspective
The preceding examples were concrete, but maybe a little too detailed, so let's look at this subject in perspective.
In essence, only momentum must be conserved, not forces. Therefore, Newton's 3rd Law should say "For every momentum, there is an equal and opposite momentum" -- forces just arise from changes in momentum, and when the force of the action is not the same type as the reaction, a linear imbalance results which leads to a net linear force. In the case of the cart on a track or on wheels, linear force is all that matters. Angular force (also known as torque) has no effect on the cart.
To put it very simply,
"if linear motion is all that matters, you can deprive momentum of it's linear force generating abilities by making it angular instead of linear momentum."
Let's turn this principle into a meme and call it the "Linear Force Deprivation Principle" or LFDP. This is a basic principle, which should be a widely recognized fact in physics, but continues to be virtually unknown.
Broader Applications
The cart example above is an impractical method of harnessing this principle, though it suffices for demonstration purposes. All that matters in constructing a device according to LFDP is for linear momentum to be converted into angular momentum and back in such a way to cause linear force imbalances.
In 1997, a few years after I came up with the LFDP, I ran across an ingenious device that illustrates this beautifully. It has been proven to work, validating both the LFDP and genius of its inventor, David Cowlishaw. The device is called the Gravitational Inertial Thruster, or GIT.
An early configuration of this device consists of a ball racing around a circular track whose rims are closer together at one end than the other:
At the narrow end, the track touches the ball close to its equator, resulting in little angular momentum for the ball and a lot of (relatively) linear momentum as it quickly curves around that bend. Then when it reaches the other end, the track touches the ball closely to its poles, slowing down the linear velocity of the ball and increasing its angular momentum. Over all, the ball flies by quickly at one end of the track, and slowly at the other. The faster the ball goes, the harder it pushes against the track, moving the entire assembly in that direction. So if one end it goes quickly, and the other end slowly, there will be an overall net linear force in the direction of the quick end.
"Wait!" you may exclaim, "what about the force required to slow down the ball? Doesn't that cancel out the force generated by the ball going faster?" Well, in ordinary devices that attempt to rectify centrifugal motion, such as the T.B. Pawlicki Device (see illustration) which makes one end of a heavy rod move faster at the same half of the track, it is true that the force required to cause the oblong motion cancels the force generated by that motion.
However, in the case of the GIT, very little force is required since it involves turning linear into angular momentum -- The reaction goes into the angular momentum of the ball itself, not the linear momentum of the track. In other words, there is considerable linear force at the fast side of the track, but when all that momentum is converted into angular momentum, the momentum is deprived of its linear force generating qualities, and so that slower end of the track truly does not receive the same counter-push as the Pawlicki type devices do. In other words, it does not take the same amount of linear force to convert linear momentum into angular momentum (thereby slowing the ball) as the ball generates when it speeds around the fast part of the track.
Therefore, the GIT really does generate action without equal and opposite reaction, and in a very clever and elegant way too. Still, you may be skeptical -- "Sure, this is a lot of talk, but where's the walk?" Well, you probably noticed that the GIT is pretty simple a device, based on a derivation of a very simple principle, the LFDP. Since it's so simple, many people must have built it, yes? That is exactly the case. One pretty well known experimenter is J. Naudin, who built and documented the device to test Cowlishaw's claims. Visit http://jnaudin.free.fr/html/GITV2.htm to read about his experiment. Scroll down the page to watch a real video clip of the GIT in operation, proving that it does work. The video is amazing!
Review
Momentum is always conserved.
For every momentum, there is an equal and opposite reaction momentum.
In ordinary cases where both momenta are of the same type, the resulting linear forces cancel.
When one is angular and the other linear, only the linear gives rise to a linear action force.
Because the linear reaction force is absent, the system is propelled by the net action force.
No linear force is created when linear momentum is converted into angular.
Conclusion
The LFDP principle makes sense and there's proof that the GIT devices work. The implications of this principle are vast, which I leave to your imagination.
All this goes to show that the authority of science cannot be taken for granted. Just because they say something is impossible does not make it so. Modern science tends to compartmentalize knowledge -- each compartment has its own rules and principles, but they remain functionally disconnected from other compartments. In this case, one department was linear force and linear momentum along with Newton's 3rd Law, while the other compartment was angular momentum and the fact that it generates no linear forces. Keep the two compartments isolated and you have the well known "truth" that systems can't move on their own, for that would be like lifting oneself up by the hair. But combine the two compartments and create a device that involves both linear AND angular momentum, and the steadfast truths of each compartment no longer hold to the hybrid system. Employ your own common sense, logic, and intuition to challenge scientific authority.
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